Category: ASSIGNMENT 2

I interpreted the brief as an assignment to make a collection of photographs expressing a single aesthetic code using a fixed combination of a lens technique and exposure.

Like in assignment one I wanted to do a type of photography or use a technique that I’m unfamiliar with. Some attempts I made before settling on ‘wide, open and empty’:

– street photography in the centre of Antwerp.

– action photography. start of the Tour the Flanders, an elite men road cycling race, in Antwerp. The shoot was educational, but I didn’t have enough quality outcome to make a series. I also would not have the option to make adjustments, as there was no opportunity to re-shoot photos.

Wide, open and empty

I don’t like the distortion in most photos that I make with my 14mm lens. Therefor I hardly use it. I thought it would be a nice challenge to make a series with this lens. I decided to go for nature views. I started with two ideas:

no obvious point of focus. To try and lead the viewer through a picture by lines and colour without a specific subject where the attention would go to first.

wide-, open-, emptiness

In the contact sheets you can see how those ideas developed in the various shoots. Although the selected photos are more about wide-, open- and emptiness, still some remains of the first idea are in there. All shots were taken handheld, lower then eye-level, with aperture priority mode at f/16 and ISO 200.

Reflection

The combination of landscape with clouds works very well. The clouds are necessary as the pictures don’t have a strong foreground interest.

I learned an important lesson about the 14mm lens. Very clear lines seen through the viewfinder don’t show the same on the picture. That’s is if the lines don’t lead the eye into the picture.

The series could improve by composing the horizon at less different heights, maybe one height when focus more on sky and one when focus more on ground.

Specific to photos

EvY 201 23/82. Various colour patches, different types of vegetation, bring depth into the picture.

EvY 202 – 22/82. Sand path as lead-in-line, but trees too small to be an obvious point of focus. Because of composition with lead-in-lines and the clouds the picture gets depth.

EvY 203 – 24/82. Various colour patches, different types of vegetation, bring depth into the picture.

EvY 204 – 25/82. Sand path as lead-in-line.

EvY 205 – 36/82. Various colour patches, different types of vegetation, bring depth into the picture.

EvY 206 – 37/82. Sand path as lead-in-line.

EvY 207 – 80/82. With some imagination a radial symmetry can be seen in the clouds. It leads the eye into the picture.

The order of the pictures I have chosen by alternating path and heath, matching successive pictures by colour of heath.